FEATURED ARTICLES ABOUT MIKHAIL KHODORKOVSKY - PAGE 3

MOSCOW, Dec 25 (Reuters) - Russia's Supreme Court on Wednesday said it will review two convictions against former oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky, including a ruling the Kremlin critic said was preventing him from returning to Russia despite a presidential pardon. After more than a decade in jail when Khodorkovsky was widely seen as a political prisoner of Vladimir Putin, he was unexpectedly pardoned and set free on Friday and has been staying in Berlin since. The pardon came as Russian authorities had begun to investigate a third criminal involving him that could have extended his jail sentence past August.

Government agents moved Wednesday to begin seizing assets of Yukos Oil Co. in a climactic confrontation that could carve up Russia's largest oil producer and has raised doubts among investors about doing business here. Marshals raided a share registry office at the end of the business day to search for ownership documents, as Yukos failed to meet a court-ordered deadline to pay the first half of nearly $7 billion in back taxes demanded by the government. The raid was the first step toward confiscating assets for the state or selling them off to satisfy the tax claim.

Russian oil major Sibneft called off its long-awaited merger with embattled Yukos Oil Friday, derailing the largest corporate deal in Russian history and sending a clear sign that shareholder angst over the government's sweeping probe of Yukos has yet to subside. The deal would have created the world's fourth-largest oil enterprise--a $35 billion company with 19.4 billion barrels in oil reserves. A Sibneft spokesman would not say why shareholders put the merger on hold. But the decision comes as the Russian government forges ahead with its five-month-old investigation into Yukos executives and associates, a probe many Russians believe to be political, orchestrated by the Kremlin.

Russian authorities charged the country's wealthiest man and the chief of its largest oil producer with fraud and tax evasion Saturday, the culmination of a sweeping investigation decried by many leading business and political leaders as Kremlin-orchestrated and politically motivated. Shortly before dawn, Russian special forces in black uniforms stormed Mikhail Khodorkovsky's private jet moments after it landed in Siberia, shouting, "FSB, put your weapons down or we'll shoot." FSB is the abbreviation for the Federal Security Service, the successor to the KGB. Khodorkovsky, who had said last week that he would never consider fleeing Russia if his arrest were imminent, was led away by FSB officers.

If they had come from the Kremlin, the points made Monday in a Russian newspaper would have drawn yawns. Russia should respect the president's authority. Big business should share its wealth with the masses. Russia's liberals haven't paid enough attention to social issues. Instead, the commentary published in the financial daily Vedomosti made Russians do a double take. They were made by Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the billionaire oil magnate and Kremlin nemesis who awaits trial in a Moscow prison cell on charges of tax evasion and fraud.

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Ilya Ponomaryov has found the Russian parliament a lonely place since becoming the only deputy to vote against the annexation of Crimea. Populist leader Vladimir Zhirinovsky's Liberal Democratic party wants the 38-year-old kicked out of the State Duma lower house for his "anti-state" vote, A senior member had to remind Zhirinovsky later that deputies cannot be expelled simply for the way they vote. Ponomaryov says last week's vote, and the hostility towards him, shows there is no room for independent thought in a parliament that is dominated by the center-right United Russia party, which is loyal to President Vladimir Putin.

The core owners of embattled Russian oil giant Yukos have told Russian authorities that they would cede their controlling stake to the government if jailed ex-CEO Mikhail Khodorkovsky were freed and the charges against him dropped. Khodorkovsky, Russia's wealthiest man, has been imprisoned in Moscow since Oct. 25 on charges of fraud and tax evasion. The 40-year-old oil magnate's requests to have bond set have been denied twice by Russian courts, and prosecutors have said he may have to wait in jail for up to two years while they prepare his trial.

A Moscow court ruled Tuesday that Mikhail Khodorkovsky, Russia's wealthiest man and the former chief executive of embattled Yukos Oil Co., should remain held without bail while he awaits trial on charges of fraud and tax evasion. The proceeding was held behind closed doors despite attempts by Khodorkovsky's lawyers to open it to the public. Most of the hearings related to Khodorkovsky's case and two other jailed Yukos associates have been closed. Jailed since Russian commandos seized him from his corporate jet Oct. 25, Khodorkovsky was not present at Tuesday's hearing but took part via a video hookup.

* Platon Lebedev was arrested months before Yukos chief in 2003 * Supreme Court shortened sentence to time served * Khodorkovsky pardoned, freed in December By Steve Gutterman MOSCOW, Jan 24 (Reuters) - Former oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky's business partner Platon Lebedev walked free on Friday after more than 10 years in prison, following in his better-known associate's footsteps after the Russian Supreme Court shortened his sentence. Lebedev, whose arrest in 2003 foreshadowed Khodorkovsky's months later, had been the former Yukos oil company chief's co-defendant in two trials that President Vladimir Putin's critics called part of a politically charged campaign of revenge.

A Russian court Thursday issued the first verdict stemming from the politically charged Yukos Oil Co. investigation that rocked the country last year, convicting a former senior executive of tax evasion but allowing him to go free after he paid $1.8 million in restitution and fines. Vasily Shakhnovsky and other top Yukos associates were arrested last year as a result of a sweeping investigation into the Russian oil giant. Observers in the West and Russia decried the probe as a political vendetta against the company's former chief executive, Mikhail Khodorkovsky.